In an unofficial hearing at the National Press Club in Washington, several former members of Congress are hearing from UFO researchers who hope to pressure the real Congress to order the military to disclose what it knows about alien visits.

Retired Air Force Captain David Schindele said he witnessed a large hovering object shut down the nuclear missile launch site in Minot, North Dakota where he was stationed in 1966.

"Our eyes were immediately transfixed on the launch control council, which showed that all missiles were off alert and unlaunchable. We had never seen such a thing before," Schindele recalled.

All the witnesses say they have been victims of a campaign of ridicule and intimidation by the government, and one of the presiders at the hearing, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, who retired in 1981, and briefly ran for president in 2008, thinks he knows why.

"What's been proven is that somebody out there - extraterrestrial - can shut off our defense capability just like that; just like that," Gravel said. "Now, how do you think that makes the people in Congress who are appropriating billions and billions of dollars for a defense system that doesn't work if you push to shove? And they've got to put a lid on this."

I have to say, if it turns out there is some alien force capable of paralyzing the world's nukes - I don't think we'd freak out - I would think we'd welcome them. And discreetly direct their attention to North Korea and Iran.